


New Beginnings

by Measured_Words



Category: City of Bones - Martha Wells
Genre: Books, First Meetings, Gen, Krismen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-17 21:18:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13085565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Measured_Words/pseuds/Measured_Words
Summary: Khat has an unexpected encounter at the Kennilar Scholars' Guild.





	New Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shycraft](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shycraft/gifts).



> I saw your prompts when you came up for a pinch hit, and I was inspired to pull a little something together. I hope you like it, and happy yuletide!
> 
> Thanks to Nary for the beta :)

The Kennilar Scholars' Guild had turned out not to be quite as accepting as Sagai had hoped, but still much better than Khat had expected. They'd actually let him through the gates, for one. Whether they would allow him to buy a position was still under consideration, though the letters that Arad had sent seemed to have some positive influence. Khat even had one from Ecazar. That one he'd intercepted before delivery just to make sure it wasn't going to hurt his chances, and it had been full of the sort of backhanded compliments he'd expected. Sagai thought that the disdain that it showed for the Guild might push them to accept him more readily purely out of spite, though Khat was still undecided on the point. Meanwhile, he'd taken to hanging out in the courtyard and talking with some of the scholars to see if it would help get them used to the idea that he was intelligent and educated.

This afternoon was slow in that regard, but he'd managed to convince Sagai to slip him an intriguing volume from the library. It was yet another comparison of the known relic types, but the track that this author had taken was a little more interesting considering what they had recently learned about the origin of painrods. The only problem was that the subject inevitably made him think of Ellen, and even after a few weeks in Kennilar that felt like a fresh wound. He was only half paying attention to the words as a result, and kept looking up to try and refocus his wandering thoughts. 

That's when he first noticed her.

Part of the scholars' dues went to the upkeep of the guildhall, and the woman he'd noticed was one of the staff employed in that regard. She was across the courtyard, leaning on a broom that she deployed in a flurry of activity as soon as she realized that Khat had caught her watching him.

It still wasn't out of the ordinary that people here stared at him, though it wasn't as bad as his memory had made it out to be. It was true that there weren't many foreigners, but there were some, and the fact that he lived with a respectable family seemed to make a difference. Maybe the fact that he didn't look like he'd spent months wandering the waste this time helped a little too.

This woman was different. She was wearing the long, loose robes that were favoured by both sexes in Kennilar, and a drapey headwrap that helped conceal her features without drawing too much attention. But she was Kris. Sort of. Her features were Kris, but her body language was all wrong, and it was hard not to stare right back at her. 

Eventually he gave up trying, closing the book and slipping it back in its leather case. She looked like she might bolt for a moment when she realized that he was coming over to her, but decided against it and returned instead to her half-hearted sweeping. As he got closer, he was able to confirm what he'd initially suspected: she wasn’t anyone he recognized from the Enclave. She had to be around his age – maybe a little younger – but he'd never met her before in his life. It seemed impossible.

"Hi," he said, and then because he realized that all the questions he wanted to ask were probably excessively rude, and he was trying to be on his best behaviour until they'd formally declined his application, he added, "do you work here?" It was a stupid question, but it was better than "who are you," or "where did you come from."

"I sure do!" She smiled. Not a dangerous fang-barring smile, or the kind of polite smile where you carefully kept them covered, but just a regular smile, like she'd never been overly concerned that someone might think she wanted to rip their throats out if they noticed her teeth. It was disconcerting. "I have for a little over a year now."

"No one said anything about there being other Kris here." That was odd too.

"Are they supposed to?" Her eyebrows shot up, and he thought that she might be enjoying this. "Though actually I think most people here don't think of me that way any more, if they think of me at all. My name's Ruth, by the way."

Ruth. It wasn't a Kris name. An alias, maybe? Something she'd chosen to help her fit in? Khat couldn't see how that would work. And there were some other things that didn't add up. He frowned. "Khat."

"I know. They told me about you." She smirked briefly and then relented, probably in response to the look on his face. "At least there's plenty of gossip about a Krisman wanting to join the guild. They're saying you have really good credentials, if that helps."

"Look," he said, deciding to give up on politeness.

"My mother was from the Enclave," she interrupted. "She was pregnant when she left, and she decided to keep me. I grew up here, but she died when I was still a kid. That's what you wanted to know, right?"

That would account for a lot, if it didn't seem so implausible. He'd completely discount it if she weren't standing right in front of him, her accent as smooth as any other city native, her mannerisms more reminiscent of Miriam's than any woman he'd know at the Enclave. "How did you survive?" A Kris child abandoned in a city should have had about the same chances of survival as a human child abandoned in the Waste.

"I hid, and I worked. And I had some help. There was a childless couple that lived in the same court. After my mother…died, they took pity on me."

Her mother had most certainly been murdered by bonesellers, and she was lucky she'd escaped that fate. Kennilar Free City might not have had the rigid hierarchical tiers of Charisat, but anyone who thought it was nothing here but light and flowers and free flowing fountains was fooling themselves. There was still a Silent Market, and still plenty of fortune tellers who would pay good money for Kris bones. "Did they raise you as their own?" He couldn't help feeling a little cynical, but her eyes weren't lying. 

Ruth shrugged and shook her head. "They were kind enough, but they were only the first to wanted me to be something I'm not."

Khat crossed his arms. "So, what are you?" And what did she want with him? He got the feeling she wasn't just curious like everyone else.

"That's a good question. I don't know why my mother left the Enclave, or that she was always happy about her decision. She taught me some things before she died, but there's a lot about being Kris that I've never learned. Whenever I've met other Kris, it's always gotten awkward really fast because of that – I smile wrong, or too much, or I can't read their eyes right. So I'm Kris, but not. That's good and bad. People don't pick me out in a crowd the same way because I act like they do, or how they expect a human to. I get more of a chance, but I'm still not one of them."

Khat frowned, interested despite himself. Kris but not. He'd felt that way himself after he'd left. He didn't think their experiences were really comparable, but it was an interesting note of similarity. "They would take you, if you wanted to go to the Enclave." He'd almost said "back." 

Ruth frowned as well, leaning on her broom. "Well, if I did – and I don't know that I do, mind – I would need someone to take me there. And none of the Kris I've ever encountered have seemed particularly inclined to return there, which doesn’t really fill me with confidence."

"Fair enough." You could certainly count him in that group, despite his cousin's invitation. He had thought about that some on the way out to Kennilar. Maybe someday he might return, if he ever felt able to forgive his uncle, but that didn't seem very likely.

"Besides which, I don't even know my lineage."

Khat stared at her, but her eyes were a clear blue. She wasn't even teasing, just being honest. It was like someone telling him they didn't know what colour their own hair was. "Someone would know. They'd figure it out." Had her mother not told her, or had she just been so young that the knowledge hadn't stuck? He wondered about that again. Maybe that was why her mother had left, if she'd gotten pregnant by someone her lineage hadn't approved of. "If you wanted," he amended. If it wasn't anything too sordid, they'd probably try to saddle her with a triumvirate of husbands pretty quickly, and that might not be something she was after anyway.

"Probably," she agreed, her eyes shifting darker brown. "I just meant that it isn't my place. Kennilar may not love me, but I know it, and it knows me. We get along, more or less. I have friends here, and a relatively safe and stable job. And look at this place!" Ruth gestured to the courtyard.

It was beautiful, and more comfortably so than the upper tiers of Charisat had ever felt, despite their tile and polished stone and reconstructed Ancient murals. A few other scholars had come outside since they'd started talking, and he could hear the rise and fall of voices engaged in heated debate.

"So that's my story," she said, crossing her own arms and hugging the broom handle to her chest. "I don't think it's really that interesting, but I figured I may as well get it out there, because it was inevitable. This way I got to tell it on my terms. You can decide if you want to tell me yours, beyond the stories the gossip is carrying."

"I don't." He didn't like to talk about why he'd left even with people he did trust, so he wasn't about to get into details with a total stranger. "Nothing personal."

"Okay. I didn't really expect you to." The mild disappointment in her voice matched the greening of her eyes… It was strange. Khat knew that the colours were tied to emotions, but she didn't react the way someone who was raised Kris would react, and it was throwing him off. "Can I ask you some things, though?"

"What kind of things?" Truth be told, there were all kinds of things he wanted to ask her, still, and he couldn't really fault her curiosity. As far as he knew, she was the only other one in Kennilar, so she probably hadn't encountered very many.

"Well, you’re a scholar, right?" Ruth waited until he nodded, leaning on her broom again. "So was my mother – I think. That's one of the reasons I wanted to work here. I thought I might feel closer to her. And maybe I would get a chance to pick some things up, over time. Now that I've been cleaning here for a year, though, I realize that was naïve."

"I'm a bad teacher, if that's what you’re after. I'd save your tokens and hire a real tutor." 

"I don't think there are tutors here that can help me with this."

Khat smiled. Base on her reaction, he was sure she could tell just what he meant by it, unusual upbringing or not. Giving Ruth a crash course in Kris history was not something he was going to volunteer for out of the goodness of his heart. "I'm a really bad teacher."

"I don't need you to teach me! Well… not really." She glanced furtively around, and lowered her voice. "I just need someone who can read."

"Read what?" Now she'd caught his attention again.

"Books. They were my mother's. She must have brought them with her when she left."

Khat's eyebrows shot way up. Ruth's eyes didn't reveal any lies, but if her mother had brought books from the Enclave, then she'd stolen them. He'd heard of volumes having been lost from the collection, but it managed to surprise him that that may have been a euphemism for theft. He was even more curious now, about the books, her mother, and Ruth herself. How had she managed to keep hold of them this long? Sweeping sand at the Scholars' Guild was not a well compensated position, and he was certain there were scholars here who would pay dearly for books that came from the Enclave.

"They're not in the Ancient language, I don't think," Ruth continued. "From what I've seen it looks different. But I don't know what it is."

"Where are they now?"

Ruth drew herself up. Khat hadn't realized how much she'd been hunching under her robes, but it was probably something else she did to try and blend in. "I'm no fool – I'm not going to just hand them over to you. They’re all I have left of my mother. I just want to know what was so important to her."

"Hey!" A sharp voice called out from across the courtyard, and a hunched older woman, also carrying a broom, stalked towards them. Ruth swore under he breath and shrank back into herself. "You're not paid to fraternize with freeloading riffraff!"

"I'm sorry matron." Ruth bowed her head. "I was just finishing here."

"Finishing?" The matron scowled, gesturing at the courtyard grounds, and particularly the loose sand that had accumulated around the bases of some of the colonnades. "You call this finished?"

Khat took this as his clue to slip away, but he nodded to Ruth as she suffered her supervisor's berating. They'd have to continue their conversation another time. As he headed back across the yard towards the library, Sagai peeled away from one of the small groups. Khat shortened his pace slightly so that he could more easily fall into step.

"Making friends," Sagai asked, tucking the book that Khat passed him into his robe, "or just making trouble?" Khat glanced over at him, undecided how much he should repeat just then. Sagai grinned more broadly. "Both then." 

"Probably," he agreed, as they turned to head out of the guild and towards home. Miriam had been talking with Netta that morning about their impending trip to the market, and all the purchases she planned to make to stock the kitchen of the new house. The meal planning had grown more and more elaborate over the course of the conversation, providing something to look forward to in the more immediate future. "I'll tell you about it over dinner."


End file.
